Messing about on the river - and a rant!

First of all I’d like to thank everyone who either left a comment, emailed privately or phoned us after we lost Charlie. We appreciated your messages very much.

I’d like to introduce you to ‘AUK’. This is the cob swan who supervises the jouvenile flock here in Stratford. AUK is the code on his leg ring. It seems he likes the floating duck and swan food that I’ve been giving him and came over every time I rattled the box.

Today we decided to go cruising for the first time since losing Charlie. The roof hatch was very empty but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Time heals.  We went upstream, through the two old bridges with their narrow arches and then to the limit of the navigation. There were lots of rowing boats and small motor boats filled with happy people having fun messing about on the river and we managed to steer our way through without any collisions.

Tramway Bridge with Clopton Bridge beyond

Once we got out of Stratford town, up towards Tiddington, the houses became more and more spectacular. We also passed a couple of caravan parks and a ‘Glamping’ park. It's the latest craze and you can find out more details HERE.

'Glamping'

beautiful house built on stilts

Towards the limit of the navigation there were a couple of huge mansions with manicured gardens. I’d love to know who lives there, maybe someone famous?

When we got back into Stratford we moored on the water point to fill up before leaving tomorrow. The boat on the other side of the water point is just the type of boater who brings narrow boaters into disrepute and I would willingly have reported him if I knew who to report to.  We watched in disbelief as he dipped his diesel tank with a stick and then rinsed it off in the river. Then he topped up the tank from a can and spilt a load of diesel into the river. He knew what he’d done and started his engine, running it in gear and wafting the rudder about trying to disperse the diesel slick and send it downstream so someone else would get the blame. He didn’t even have the decency to get the washing up liquid out to help disperse the slick which drifted right across the river.  It was only the other day that I’d commented to someone just how amazingly clean the river is here. Despite the number of hire boats and trip boats we hadn’t seen any sign of floating rubbish or diesel in the water, until he came that is! It wasn’t a tatty old boat either, just someone with total disregard for the environment.